KayakReviews 321

Travel-Search-Engines.com reviewed several travel sites. In a 2013 rate comparison between Kayak.com and BestTravelCoupon.com, BTC beat Kayak on 85 out of 90 rate comparisons.

Both sites claim to search 100s of travel sites. But Kayak results tend to only post the large travel booking sites such as Expedia and Priceline. BTC searches more sites and posts better rates.

I still use Kayak to check rates but BTC is usually a better option.

Kayak.com deserves a 0 for the worst customer service on the face of the planet. I used Kayak.com to book a room at the Willard InterContinental in Washington D. C. and soon after booking found out I wasn't able to go. After calling Kayak.com trying to cancel a full month and a half before my check-in date they said no. So I called the hotel explained to them and they said there was nothing they could to do, but if I had booked through them they said i would be able to cancel. I took my case to the Better Buisness Bureau and after 3 days of complicated transactions from Kayak.com to me the BBB said they couldn't make the company give me my $621.73 back. So now I'm out $621.73, running out of time, very upset at Kayak.com, and never plan to use the travel agency again.

This site should only be used as a search engine. After you find your "Deal", you should log off Kayak and log onto the site Kayak suggested. I have used Kayak for over 5 years, spending most of my time in the air, in a rental cars, and hotels.
After being a loyal customer of Kayak, let me share my recent and last trip booked through Kayak.
I travel to Australia 2 to 3 times a year. My last flight booked to Australia, through Kayak, was booked in early March to leave LAX to Sydney on Oct 2nd
The 3rd of September Kayak contacted me to let me know that my Flight was over sold BY 300 PEOPLE and I was going to be switched to a flight leaving three (3) days earlier, changing me from a VAustralia flight to a Delta Flight.
Kayak then informed me that because they are a "third party", there was NOTHING THEY COULD DO TO HELP.
If I would have spent the few extra dollars directly with my chosen Airline, I would have been fine.
Neither Kayak or the website they sent me to were willing to help in anyway.

If you want to be shocked that your reservation has been cancelled when you are getting ready to go to the airport, you may want to use kayak.com. I gave then one star because there is no option of giving a ZERO stars. I booked a flight to Orlando, Florida through kayak, was supposed to go to JFK then to Orlando. I received the confirmation for the booking and I even called the airline to choose my seats. On the day of travel, I was about to print the booking ( 4 hours before departure) when i realized that the booking was cancelled. I called Kayak and the so called "customer service" agent told me that they could not verify my payment with the bank!. I told him but why did not you send me an email informing me that, as you did with the booking confirmation. He said we tried to call you and no answer! He told me that they have nothing to do with the reservation anymore!

I have not received any calls from them. The funny part is that the tickets amount was charged from my credit cards as reflected on my bank statement, which was later refunded. We ended up buying an expensive ticket at the airport to Chicago instead of New York and bought expensive domestic US flight because we wanted it on the next day and booked an hotel for the night in Chicago. We lost one night from our hotel reservation. Will ask for compensation, or will take legal action.

I attempted to book a room through Kayak.com. Like many travelors I was on a budget for my trip and wanted to find the best hotel. Kayak.com took my payment information, attempted to book me a room, failed at the booking, yet still put a hold for the full cost of the room on my account. I called the number on the transaction with my bank and was told that they could not help me (offshore support company), so I placed a customer service form through Kayak.com's website. I received the email below as a response. Obviously Kayak.com has put alot of time and effort into positioning themselves as the middle man with no responsibility as to the successful completion of the booking, but as they took my payment information directly, I don't see it that way. I will never use them again and I have spent the last few days making sure my social media circles are aware of this company's shady business practices.

Email from "Melissa" at Kayak.com

Hello: I see your recent reservation processed by Travelocity. To help clarify, KAYAK provides an option to complete a hotel reservation using third party providers, such as Travelocity. All service inquiries are handled directly by Travelocity and their policies apply. For assistance kindly contact Travelocity at *******849, or *******997. Kind regards, Melissa KAYAK Consumer Services Rep

Hands down the WORST customer support I have seen with CROOKED POLICIES.
I've called this company 6 times previously and have been promised a call back 3 times. I received NONE of those call backs. I called back AGAIN today only to be told I had to call back later because the office they needed to contact (which I had already talked to and was told it would be recorded in my file) was closed. I have been told this previously and did as said, then I didn't receive a call back from the 'supervisor.' I was promised credit (not a refund, I FULLY understood that) after I cancelled a ticket in December.

I was told if I called back within one year I would receive credit towards a new ticket. I obliged. I asked for proof of this and a cancellation notice by email or post and was told "they don't do that." He told me to 'rest assured' that it had been marked in my file and I only needed my confirmation and ticket numbers when I called back. I even asked for a name and a number of the person I was talking to and was only given a first name and NO number because it was COMPANY POLICY.

Each time I call back they give me the same questions, and then eventually they tell me it was marked in the file. They have a terribly crooked system. I have the time, dates, and names of every person I've talked to in the ENTIRE company and every time I call back they treat me and act as if I had never contact them before.

They say the INFORMATION IS ON FILE, yet will give you NO PROOF of this. Do not deal with this company. I have been dealing with the issue for weeks now. I would be willing to pay 50% more for my ticket and use a different site than this one. You will get no peace of mind doing business with this company.

I was monitoring my flight prices with kayak.com, it kept giving me stale results almost for a day. Flight prices given by kayak were horribly wrong. It kept showing $71 where the actual price was $161. I lost almost $100 due to wrong results given by kayak.com. And it kept showing me flights which were already full. Its better to search prices and flights on individual sites rather than trusting kayak. I know its time taking but you won't regret later like I did.

The last day of our holiday in the U.S.A. we needed a car to get back to the airport, to travel back to the Netherlands.
I found one via the kayak website, made a reservation, and got a confirmation by email that we could pick it up at Avis, 1092 S Ponce de Leon Blvd.
So far, so very good.
Until we got to this address. No Avis! So we called the toll-free phonenumber that was in the confirmation. It is just a computer, reading 35 different non applicable options, there is no real person on the Phone.
So this was no solution.
We asked the other companies at the Ponce de Leon Blvd.
They told us that Avis had moved more than a year ago (!). So Kayak used an address that is outdated for more than a year.

Saint Augustine is not a very big place with lots of rental car locations. So we asked a lot of people, and drove around for almost two hours until we found Avis at the Wallmart. There was no reservation on my name off course, because the reservation was made for the non existing location.
You can understand that this procedure causes a lot of stress. We took some extra time for the procedure, but we had more than 2,5 hours delay in getting the car at that moment.
Pat of Avis helped us out. He found us a dirty car we could use, it was the only car he had available. We were relieved to finally have a car, so we cleaned it ourselves.
We were on time at the airport, but the last day of our holiday was ruined because of the stress.

I cannot recommend this site. I made a reservation for a car with Dollar with Kayak but I was completely surprised by completely different prices when I finally picked up the car. I really don't have any confidence in their quotes, so why use it?
When I wrote an email complaining about the discrepancies (I will mention these at the end for the details-oriented persons) this is the completely unhelpful answer I got:
Hi, The prices you see on KAYAK should be the same as what you see on the booking site. However, it looks like that travel provider may be having issues with the accuracy of the data they are sending us. In any case, we will use your report to help us improve data quality with them. Thanks for letting us know about this! Kind regards, Walter KAYAK Systems Engineer

The details of my complaint:
Dear Sir/Madam, The rates you quoted were not honored by Dollar. When I asked for an extra day, the discrepancy between the price you quoted for 7 days ($205) rose to $294 with the extra day! The attendant said Kayak might have had problems figuring taxes, Whatever the reason, the end result is that I was seriously mislead by Kayak. This was extremely disappointing and I really don't think I can trust the rates kayak quotes anymore; I think it i better to book with the rental companies directly. I would appreciate if Kayak could compensate me, in some way, for the discrepancy.

Booked a car through kayak with enterprise. Went to pick car up in Stuttgart to find though quoted €230. We had not got any insurance even though I was sure I had added this and and also would have to pay €6 a day if we took the car out of Germany! We ended our holiday paying €437! When could eventually contact kayak they said it was all in the small print. My advice is check that your insurance is included and about the border money before you go as this put quite a damper on our holiday. Don't think I'd use kayak again.

Kayak is the worst travel site, search engine, booking site I have ever used. Stay away DO NOT USE. Their website is misleading and their cancellation policy, which basically says that you are totally in their hands and they can charge you whatever they want with NO REFUNDS, are the worst I have ever read. Customer service follows suit as you get sales reps in India with reall y bad VoIP connections that are unable to escalate your case to anyone beyond the call center.
I searched for hotel rooms in a specific city, for a specific night and up came multiple options with the cheapest one being the highest star rated name brand hotel chain in the list. Little did I know it was not in the city I was searching for but in the "general area" of the city I was looking for. The hotel was an extra 28 minutes from where I was going, the wrong way. So basically they considered the "general area" to be some location that would inconvenience me an extra 1hr of driving to/from.
The worst part is that no where in the site did it specify the city it was in, until I got my confirmation email listing my booking details. Well, guess what? It was too late. According to their cancellation policy, there are no refunds! What joke. When I called customer service and tried to explain that no where did I get the details on my reservation for me to "review" for accuracy (I actually went throught the process on the phone and booked another room), they said that their site was working fine, that there had been no reports of glitches, and that they were not at fault, and they were not going to refund.
The rep even insulted me saying that If I did not read the policy and could not find out where the city was, it was my own incompetence. I asked him to escalate the matter and he said he had the final authority! STAY AWAY!

Absolute nightmare. Booked a flight from Singapore to Dubai via Emirates. Knew I was in trouble when I then got an email that said I "should" receive a confirmation within 1 business day. Most on-line confirmations are in minutes or hours now that it is 2013 and not 1999 anymore... Well 27 hours later, no confirmation, call or email from them... actually it is farmed off to a bunch of jokers called Vayama. I called them and they said, "Oh your flight has been cancelled by the airline, you have to call them" Huh, didn't I book via an online travel agent (you!) and you should call them? Oh and yes, he confirmed my credit card had been charged, but offered no discussion about crediting it back! This is for a flight a few days away, so I am freaking out of course at their complete disinterest in what is happening.

So, I called Emirates and they said that Vayama made a booking, but they never ticketed it (i. E. gave them the money within 24 hours) so it was cancelled. So I booked a new ticket with her immediately, paid a bit more but got the flights I had to be on for my meetings.

Called back Kayak/Vayama and told them to issue the credit. Still waiting to confirm I have this credit.

Will NEVER use Kayak again, needless to say. Do not risk it, book directly!

I booked a flight from Osaka to Bangkok on the Kayak Booking site - I supplied all the details on the booking request form - within 24hrs I received an email stating that the Revenue Protection Department had cancelled my booking "due to lack of verifiable information" - note that at 9.38am they attempted to ring me (but I was indisposed) and by 9.40am I received the cancellation email... the email told me to ring them which I did on my mobile so not cheap, they told me they could not reactivate the flight and I was transferred to the bookings area - they told me I could not book with them and I should speak with the Revenue Protection Dept. Finally after being put on hold (again) I was told that I would have to book online - and guess what - my cheapest option had gone from around $500 with China Eastern to around $800 (funny the search did not return any flights on CE) - I have made 7 different flight booking online with Air Asia in the past two week using the same information without a problem - only 1 through Kayak - never again - so as per a previous reviewer - use the Search Engine BUT DONT book with them.